Effects of the Information Explosion on Information Literacy

Tonight I turned in my first Graduate level paper for my Foundations class. It was on current issues in the Library and Information profession. More or less it was an analytical paper on any issues that was affecting our field. After some brainstorming and preliminary research I was overwhelmed with everything I was finding. And that’s when I found an article on information overload. I thought what an apropos discovery, I opted to do more research on the topic and ended up choosing that as my current issue.

The sheer magnitude of information that is coming available to people on a daily basis is unsettling in my opinion. The information explosion is largely going unchecked and our society is being given helpful and quickly accessible knowledge, but at the same time drowned in false and harmful lies. The eruption of readily accessible information has led to increase productivity through the sharing of ideas in some areas and caused unchecked mass hysteria in others. In this paper I will talk about the effects of today’s information explosion and how it is specifically affecting information literacy. I will explore the meaning of the term information explosion, more importantly what it entails and its effects, followed by what information literacy is, and how it is changing to meet the demands of today’s sudden increase of information and technology.